Mail Online - homepage analysis

Complete the following tasks:

Go to the Mail Online website.

• List all the first 30 news stories that appear on the homepage.
• Categorise the stories by type: celebrity gossip, sport, world news, UK news, politics, sport etc
• What stories appear more often?
• Why would those stories be popular? Give reasons? What does this tell you about the sort of person that reads this site?
• Look at the 'sidebar of shame'.
• List the first 20 'stories'.
• Categorise the stories - this may need to be by type of celebrity or content of the article.

Media Language - Codes and Conventions of Newspapers

The layout of newspapers follows a clear format. These typical elements such as a 'Masthead' and 'Splash' are known as the Codes and Conventions of newspaper layout and you need to name them all using accurate terminology. You will analyse newspapers as media products in your Media Messages exam.

Audience

Understanding the layout means you can immediately judge the content you expect to be reading in the product. There are two main types of newspapers Broadsheet and Tabloid and as a rule Broadsheet publications cover news stories in more depth, focusing on politics, economy and 'hard' news events, catering for an educated audience. Tabloids often include more 'soft' news such as celebrity stories and sensationalist language to appeal to a different demographic group. Broadsheet audiences are sometimes accredited with the tag 'information seekers' while Tabloid audiences are sometimes tagged 'emotional participants'.

Format

A traditional quality broadsheet would use the layout below. These newspapers were printed on sheets of paper 116.83 x 86.28cm. In recent years newspapers that have traditionally used the broadsheet size have changed their format to cope with the rising costs of paper and newsprint.

A traditional Broadsheet format

The Times and Independent have become tabloid size, while The Guardian has adopted a new Compact or Berliner format. As a result of such changes the terms 'broadsheet quality press' and the 'popular tabloid press' are now outdated terms. Some would argue that the quality press has become more like the popular or gutter press, a process known as tabloidisation.

The Berliner or Compact format

The Tabloid newspaper format is half the size of a Broadsheet, with pages measuring 58.4 x 40.6cm  and are known as the Popular Press.

The Daily Mail is a Tabloid newspaper and therefore concerned more with sensationalism and gossip as part of its news values. The news agenda of this paper is different to The Guardian. You should be able to work this out by looking closely at the content.

Task: 1. Select two front pages, one from The Guardian and one from The Daily Mail. Deconstruct the front covers, labelling the conventions you can find.

2. Ensure all work is completed and in your exercise book

Representation of teenagers - Mail Online/ Daily Mail

Research how teenagers are represented by the Mail Online.

• Google 'mail online teenagers' - see image above.
• Choose at least 5 different stories that cover a range of teenage issues and experiences.
• Save the images that have been used. Write about the types of images used and what they tell the audience about teenagers. Comment on how teenagers are represented in the images? 
• Read through the articles and list the positive and negative words and phrases used in each one. What do they tell us about the attitudes towards teenagers? Are these attitudes fair? What stereotypes are used? Who are the audience? How can you tell? Explain your thinking in as much detail as possible.

Teens in TV drama - Pretty Little Liars

Premise:

Set in the small suburban town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania (not far from Philadelphia), the series follows the lives of five girls: Spencer Hastings, Alison DiLaurentis, Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin and Emily Fields, whose clique falls apart after the leader of the group, Alison, goes missing. One year later, the remaining estranged friends are reunited as they begin receiving messages from a mysterious villain named "A" or "A.D.", who threatens and tortures them for the mistakes they have made before and after Alison was alive. At first, they think it is Alison herself, but after her body is found, the girls realise that someone else is planning on ruining their lives.

Watch episode one and make notes on the following:

1. How realistic are the teenage representations in the episode?
2. What works and what seems a little far fetched?
3. What is interesting about the mise en scene?
4. What stereotypes are used?
5. Why are those stereotypes used?
6. In what ways do the representations challenge stereotypes (offer countertypes)?

Introduction to TV Drama: Representation of Teens

Do you believe these characters are real? A writer's job is tricky, especially with science fiction genre programmes. They must engage the audience and make them invest in the characters in order to deliver a satisfying narrative resolution. 

Class is made for BBC 3, a channel that caters for young people. So you can expect the characters to seem realistic because the target audience need to believe they are seeing themselves presented as real people.

Task: Watch the trailer again and jot down any elements of the characters that make them seem like realistic teenage characters.
In media lessons, you will be finding out how teenagers are represented in TV Drama and thinking about whether they are fairly and accurately portrayed by writers or whether they are heavily stereotyped. Do you think teenagers are presented using traditional stereotypes or do they seem more realistic in the programmes that you enjoy watching? It is usual for teen characters to be oversimplified if they appear in a programme made to appeal to an older target audience. Programmes created for young adults tend to have more convincing, realistic interpretations of how teenagers behave.

Task: Working in pairs, you need to create a powerpoint presentation looking at how teenagers are represented in TV Drama. You can choose the TV Dramas that you know to outline how some programmes are more convincing and successful than others.

News - How are teenagers represented in newspaper articles?

Click on the image above to read this article about how language used in newspaper articles creates a negative impression of teenagers and promotes the negative stereotypes about that demographic group.

Click the image of different British teenagers from around the country to read their views about the stereotypes they battle against.

But while news tends to focus on either end of the scale from the academic bright stars or the criminalised 'youths' there are some columnists who have written about this unfair portrayal. Click on the logo below to read this opinion piece about the accepted stereotypes and how they are unfounded.